


Raven

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: M/M, Smut in future chapters, Swan Lake/Twelve dancing princesses mashup, fairytale AU, just without the tragic ending, one-sided Ardyn/Noctis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 18:10:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15125060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: Noctis Lucis Caelum is cursed by the wizard Ardyn Izunia, forced to take the shape of a raven during the day, and regains his human form for the night so long as he returns to Ardyn's courtyard before the sun sets. The curse will lift only if Noct agrees to return Ardyn's love, but so far, he's succeeded in turning down the wizard's advances.Prompto Besithia is the twelfth son of the wizard Verstael, indistinguishable from his brothers even to his father. By chance, he happens upon an old keep in the woods, and when he climbs up the crumbling wall, what he finds there will change his life forever.





	Raven

A magpie sits on a statue of a wood nymph, nestled in the middle of the overgrown courtyard of the wizard Ardyn Izunia. Beyond the high walls of the wizard’s keep, the sunset splashes bright, vibrant purples and reds across a clear sky, but the magpie doesn't appear to be admiring the view. While other birds may be finding places to roost amid the ornamental trees that line the courtyard, the magpie simply waits, his glossy green wing-feathers perfectly groomed, his eye keen as he twitches his head to scan the horizon. He doesn't even shift his clawed feet as the sun begins to melt in the distance, but there's a restlessness to the way he sits, a tense, quiet energy that radiates from his upraised head even as he becomes nothing more than a shadow against the sky. 

Then, just as the magpie starts to hunch his shoulders in impatience, a raven bursts out of the trees.

All ravens are beautiful creatures to someone, with their broad wings and sharp, cruel beaks, but this raven in particular has a remarkably wide wingspan, long and elegant as a hawk, and his feathers are so dark that for a moment, it looks as though someone has cut out a piece of the sky to reveal the blackness of space. The raven lands in the center of the grassy courtyard, and his wings unfold impossibly wide, casting a shadow over the stone benches and statues beyond. Black feathers brush the tips of a greying sunset, then bend, curling in on the raven as though to ward him from the last errant rays of the sun. When the wings expand again, they melt away, feathers spilling onto the clover as a young man with dark hair and the tattered remains of a fine black suit stumbles to his knees. 

“Motherfucker,” he says. 

“Now, that’s hardly polite,” says the magpie. 

The bird hops to the ground, flapping madly, and straightens into a tall, outlandishly dressed man with auburn hair and at least two scarves wound about his neck. He runs calloused fingers down his impeccably ruffled collar, and moonlight glints off rings made heavy with crystal and opal. 

“Noctis,” he says. “My dear, horribly ill-behaved Noctis. You look as lovely as you did the night we met. And the next night. And the night after, and the night after that…”

“Go to hell, Ardyn,” Noctis says. He ducks away from Ardyn and stomps across the clover, kicking up feathers. 

“You wound me, Noct,” Ardyn says, a hand on his heart. “I come to you, nothing but a poor, lovelorn fool--”

“Uh huh,” Noct says. He tugs off his jacket and carefully drapes it over a statue of a chubby fawn. “Sure.”

“And every night you spurn me. It’s enough to send a man into a fit of despair.”

“You’ve never been in despair in your life,” Noct says. His feet are bare, already damp with dew, and the ragged hem of his pants catches on a heel. He staggers and rights himself on a fountain made of a murder of stone crows, water dribbling from their open beaks, and scowls at them. “My answer’s the same as always.”

Ardyn sighs, loping around the fountain like a mournful old dog spurned at the door. He touches Noct’s chin and tilts his head up, examining the light in his eyes. “All I ask,” Ardyn says, “is that you love me. I will make you a cloak of starlight, dear Noctis, and a crown of moonsilver, and just as I despise you, just as I want to tear those bright eyes out with my bare hands and taste your blood on my fingers, so too will I worship you, praise you, make you beautiful and powerful and loathed the world over.”

Noct gives Ardyn a level stare, blank of all emotion, but his hand is white-knuckled where he grips the edge of the fountain. “Nah.”

“To hell with you, then,” Ardyn says, jerking Noct’s head to the side with a flick of his wrist. But he’s smiling all the same, and when he steps back, long coat whirling around his feet, he gives Noct the faintest mocking bow. “Your highness.”

He wraps his coat around himself and collapses into the form of a magpie again, taking off through a high window beyond the courtyard. Noct watches him go for a good minute before he can pry his numb fingers loose from the fountain. 

 

\---

 

Prompto Besithia, the twelfth and youngest son of Verstael Besithia, climbs out the back of his middle brother’s truck and hits the ground running. All twelve of them are there, spilling out of the truck bed like gravel, all blond and wiry and armed with spells wrapped in parchment paper and leather, and Prompto can hear them pounding through the woods on all sides. Em, the oldest, is five weeks Prompto’s senior, and he lets out a little whoop as he passes, headed for the grocery at the edge of town.

Prompto looks down at the twisted papers in his hands. One carries a bad luck curse, due to be delivered at the mayor’s house on the hill. The other is a recipe for acne scars and bad teeth, meant for the mayor’s daughter. The third is a warning, a light that will hover over the mayor’s door every day until he allows Verstael the right to perform his experiments on the local shepherds’ flocks, merging wolf and sheep into six-legged monsters that cower and snap and need to be sheared every few months. 

Prompto’s spells are a warning for him, too. He’s the fastest out of all his brothers, the slyest, the best at sneaking over walls and through gaps in a fence without being seen, and his father has rewarded him with a chance to prove his worth. 

But he likes the mayor. He’s rough around the edges, sure, but he always nods at Prompto when he’s running around town, and his daughter danced with Prompto once at a festival. 

“I know you,” she’d said, smiling with all of her white, perfect teeth. “You're Leo.”

Who is Prompto’s sixth brother, technically, but in her defense, even Prompto’s father doesn't bother telling them apart most days.

Prompto stops at a creek of fast-moving water and gently unscrews the spells, letting them dissolve and scatter into a handful of useless herbs. Then he buries the paper for good measure, dusts off his hands, and walks into the woods.

The woods are quiet as a shrine, a far cry from the creaking, chaotic mess of a room Prompto shares with his brothers, and it's there that Prompto’s true skill really shines. He pads silently through the sparse underbrush, his footsteps silent as the velvet tread of a great cat, and he pulls a grey cap over his shock of blond hair. The shadows swallow him, and as he slinks between the trees, the woods begin to stir. Night birds swoop from high branches. Mice rustle in the grass. A fox stares at Prompto in alarm before darting off into the dark, and in the distance, he can see the shining eyes of a group of deer, legs trembling, noses lifted to the cool, crisp air.

He almost doesn't see the wall, at first. When he does, Prompto stops, hands in his pockets, and cranes his neck to peer at the crumbling expanse. Moss grows thick in the cracks of the stone, and the trees are clustered right up to the edge, as though the owner of the wall doesn’t care--or isn't around--to bother with possible intruders. Prompto looks to the oak at his side, with its thick, heavy branches and rough bark, and braces a boot on the trunk.

Climbing is quick work for a young man used to hauling buckets of saltwater and stone up to the attic for his father’s spells, and Prompto drags himself up to the top of the wall, which is sturdy enough to hold his weight, but slick with moss. His fingers are already stained with it, and he wraps his arms around a section of stone that juts out over a moonlit garden, bursting with flowers and intricately carved statues.

In the middle of it all, kicking his heels in the grass as he leans against a statue of a boar, is the most beautiful man Prompto has seen in his life. His dark hair falls just short of his eyes, his arms have just enough definition to see through the remains of a ruined shirt, and his face is strangely elfin in the moonlight, like one of the impossible creatures Prompto’s father writes about in his notes. The man lifts a hand to his hair, and Prompto inches closer, hitching his leg over the wall.

“Hey,” a deep, rough-edged voice snaps out. “You ain't allowed up there.” 

The man whips his head around to stare, lips parted, as Prompto, caught for the first time in almost ten years, tips forward and loses his grip on the wall.


End file.
